How I eat, work out and thrive as a busy professional

Let’s face it, if you are a busy professional, chances are you are – stressed out, overworked, short on time, tired and struggling to fit health and fitness into your life.

Aren’t we all busy professionals at this point? Running around trying to fit more things into a single day – from spending time on yourself to spending time on your career…don’t forget the family! Sometimes I even have to ask myself “Do I have time to workout today?”.

Yes, I know I work in a gym. You might say “it must be easy for me to workout and stay in shape”. However, I am still a busy professional trying to balance work, life, family and my health.

Making time for myself sometimes makes me feel guilty and selfish. Do you ever feel that way?

So for me “Do I have time NOT to focus on myself?” is a better question.

Well when you put it that way…

When focusing on yourself is hard.

Focusing on yourself is HARD. We as women know that. But, we usually don’t admit it…aloud. When I find myself straying TOO far from focusing on myself into focusing on other people/things, I try and map out the the big priorities to SELF-CARE. For me, that’s working out, de-stressing and food prep. Your self-care might be different, but it should include those three things.

When Ben was going through Chemo (you can read more about that here if you want), I realized that I was not consistent with movement/workouts, my meals were all over the place and my sleep (self-care) sucked. It was certainly a stressful time, but, I was still a busy professional that had to take care of myself.

Workouts: I was stuck in a mindset that I had to get in 4 hours a week of strength training, then 1-2 hours of conditioning or cardio. That’s 5-6 hours! Unrealistic for me at that time.

Meals: I was grabbing and going…with little to no planning or prepping whatsoever. I had this idea that food prep would take hours and I just didn’t want to do it. I would rather spend time with my husband supporting him while he was going through his battle.

Sleep: I don’t watch a lot of TV but when I do it was right before bed, with my phone in hand or in bed. I needed a distraction to help me unwind from the day.

At the end of the day, our health is the only thing we can count on. I realized I had to get back to taking care of myself.

So what strategies did I come up with?

These are what I used to help me. You have to figure out what your making time for, then where do you need to put more time in or what do you need to work on the most. You might decide to start small by just getting to the gym twice a week or you might try food prep on the weekends. Whatever it is, commit to that one thing for a few weeks before you add in more.

For my workouts, I realized that I didn’t have to workout 4-6 hours a week to feel strong, maintain my weight or muscle. I trimmed my workouts down to 30-45 min with 1 day of resistance training in the gym and 2-3 days of kettlebell or body weight workouts at home or anywhere. I also added in 15-30 min walks every day. The dog and I were both happier for it;)

For my meal planning. I started planning out what I was going to have for dinner each night and wrote it on our family white board. This allowed me to plan other meals (I don’t like eating the same things everyday) and prep accordingly. If you missed it, check out http://kdrfitness.com/mastered-meal-prep/.

For my self care, I revisited my Sleep Hygiene Rules – no phones in the bedroom EVER, no watching TV right before bed (I just love to lay in bed sometimes and watch TV), take my supplements 30-45 minutes before bed (the last one is hardest for me), if I wake up and cannot get back to sleep, GET UP. I used to lay there stressing out about not sleeping…which kept me awake. Putting that structure in place really helped me declutter my pre-bed time.

Are you a busy professional? We have a great resource for you (see below) that covers a lot of the things I talked about, gives you some great tips and tricks to help you re-focus on your self AND downloadable.

Hi! My name is Jamie. The current state of fitness and health is too complicated, in my opinion. I want to try and make being fit and healthy as simple as possible. Lift some weights, get your heart rate up, eat real food, treat yourself when you deserve and don’t stress the scale!

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